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Ukraine’s War Economy, 1 Year In [Joseph Politano, Apricitas Economics]

By William McClain
In Joseph Politano [Apricitas Economics]
February 27, 2023
380 views
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  • One year ago, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, tens of millions of refugees, and a 30-40% reduction in Ukraine’s GDP.
  • Ukraine and the Global Food Crisis – Ukrainian crop production and food exports have been severely harmed, but the absolute worst-case scenario was avoided. The Black Sea Grain Initiative has been instrumental in allowing food exports to resume.
  • Ukraine’s Battered Industry – Ukrainian industrial output has fallen more than 35%, and manufacturing output has fallen a staggering 40%. Companies still see the situation as getting worse before it gets better, and the war is the biggest impediment to Ukrainian economic growth.
  • Conclusions – Ukraine will likely remain dependent on foreign aid for much of its economic needs, and many nations are already failing to meet their stated military and financial commitments. Subscribe now to receive new posts on economic data analysis.

Published February 25, 2023
Visit Apricitas Economics to read Joseph Politano’s original post Ukraine’s War Economy, 1 Year In

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Chartbook #197: The Ukraine-Aid Reality Gap [Adam Tooze, Chartbook]

By William McClain
In Adam Tooze [Chartbook]
February 27, 2023
295 views
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  • There is a gap between collective awareness of major social, environmental, political and economic problems and the resources mobilized to meet them. This gap can be interpreted as a problem of hypocrisy, policy, or perception (a “reality gap”).
  • The Kiel Institute has tracked €143.6 billion of financial, humanitarian, and military aid committed to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and January 15, 2023. Poland is contributing the most in proportional terms (2.1% of GDP), followed by the US and Germany (0.375% of GDP).
  • The US and Germany are not contributing as much as they have in past military-economic efforts. Furthermore, their contributions to Ukraine are less than their contributions to other emergencies.
  • Ukraine is in need of $3.5 billion per month. The US and Europe have committed to providing enough to cover that, but payments do not arrive in a steady or reliable fashion.
  • The gap between declared intentions and actual delivery of aid to Ukraine is vast. This raises questions of cynicism, incompetence, and a “reality gap”.
  • The course of the war in 2023 is highly uncertain. If Russia does not crumble, the “reality gap” may close in the direction of greater financial and military aid.
  • Chartbook Newsletter is free to readers around the world. It is sustained by voluntary subscriptions from paying supporters. Subscribe now to join the group of supporters.

Published February 25, 2023
Visit Chartbook to read Adam Tooze’s original post Chartbook #197: The Ukraine-Aid Reality Gap

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February 24, 2023 [Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American]

By William McClain
In Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American]
February 27, 2023
248 views
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  • Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the United Nations Security Council Ministerial Meeting on Ukraine Sovereignty and Russian Accountability one year and one week ago that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine.
  • Seven days later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
  • Russia has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian men, women, and children; uprooted more than 13 million people from their homes; destroyed more than half of the country’s energy grid; bombed more than 700 hospitals, 2,600 schools; and abducted at least 6,000 Ukrainian children.
  • The world community has come together to stand behind Ukraine and the principles of the United Nations Charter that make all countries safer and more secure.
  • Any peace must honor Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, which Putin has rejected.
  • The Biden administration today announced $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, while the G7 has increased its 2023 support for Ukraine to $39 billion.
  • Russia’s deputy chair of security council, former president Dmitry Medvedev, said today that Russia planned to “push the borders of threats to our country as far as possible, even if these are the borders of Poland.”
  • Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Victory will be inevitable. I am certain there will be victory.”

Published February 25, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 24, 2023

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Peter Zeihan – The Ukraine War: Operational Updates [Peter Zeihan, Zeihan on Geopolitics]

By William McClain
In Peter Zeihan [Zeihan on Geopolitics]
February 23, 2023
200 views
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  • Most important factor: Weather continues to be warm in Kiev, not cold enough to freeze the ground.
  • Ukraine’s challenge: Ukraine has fewer people than Russia and must inflict high casualty ratios to be victorious.
  • Russia’s perspective: This war is a battle for Russia’s survival, and they will not stop.
  • Ukrainian strategy: The only way for Ukraine to emerge victorious is to kill so many Russian soldiers that the Russian front collapses.
  • Russian tactics: Wagner group has been using convicts in human wave tactics, throwing wave after wave of humans at Ukraine until weather changes or logistics shifts.
  • Estimations: Minimum deaths in the war so far in the Russian side is 120,000 and estimates for Russian deaths in the battle specifically is somewhere between 10 and 40,000.
  • Upcoming months: Russians will move more troops into the front and with the second mobilization underway, they will be badly led, equipped, supplied, and trained.
  • Ukrainian strategy: Ukraine needs to free up the conflict into a war of movement, allowing tanks and artillery to do an offensive where Russians can’t resist or maneuver.

Published February 23, 2023
Visit YouTube to watch Peter Zeihan’s original vlog Peter Zeihan – The Ukraine War: Operational Updates

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The War in Ukraine in Eight Photos [Peter Savodnik, The Free Press]

By William McClain
In [The Free Press]
February 22, 2023
303 views
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  • Yulia (center), a teacher, signed up as a soldier when war broke out in Ukraine in February 2022. This conflict has caused 60,000 Russian casualties and 100,000 Ukrainian casualties, including 400 children, and has forced the West to realize that the “end of history” is a fantasy. The U.S. has funneled $68 billion in military hardware and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
  • Award-winning photographer Lynsey Addario has been covering the Ukrainian conflict, despite having been kidnapped twice. She believes that journalists should hold people like Putin accountable for his crimes, and to provide a historical record for viewers to see and understand what is happening.
  • Addario has captured searing images of the war, such as a sheared off apartment building from a missile strike, a woman crying with a rifle before being transferred to a base, a family killed by shrapnel while fleeing a bridge, Ukrainian drone team reviewing kills, a woman cradling her baby in a moldy shelter basement, a babushka celebrating a Ukrainian soldier, and a man with a bloody and bruised face from a 2,000-pound warhead missile strike.
  • Addario has had many close calls in Ukraine, and the people there have come to realize that there are no limits to the evil they are facing. Now the feeling is that there is no going back.

Published February 22, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Peter Savodnik’s original post The War in Ukraine in Eight Photos

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‘They Didn’t Understand Anything, but Just Spoiled People’s Lives’ [Nataliya Gumenyuk, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 14, 2023
244 views
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• The Reckoning Project has collected evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, including the targeting of local officials for interrogation and torture.
• Viktor Marunyak, mayor of Stara Zburjivka, was arrested and tortured by Russian soldiers, who seemed to have no clear understanding of why they were occupying Ukraine.
• Other mayors, deputy mayors, and local leaders from the Kherson region were also arrested or kidnapped, and some have disappeared.
• Russian forces have replaced elected officials with random, unqualified people, and have displayed Soviet symbols in an attempt to gain sympathy.
• Volunteers who run charities and civic organizations have also been targeted, as the Russians seem unable to believe that people are spontaneously helping each other.
• Two volunteers, who requested anonymity, were interrogated and beaten, and asked repeatedly about a nonexistent conspiracy.
• The Russian occupiers of Ukraine have been haphazardly attempting to Russify the educational system, with little success.
• They have removed Ukrainian-language books from some schools, imposed a Russian-language curriculum, and forced some teachers to return to work.
• The occupiers have also resorted to violence, including beatings, electric shocks, and arbitrary arrests.
• This violence is rooted in the occupiers’ frustration with their own incapacity to control the Ukrainians, and their incomprehension of Ukrainian culture.
• The occupiers’ actions are reminiscent of the Potemkin village legend, and are part of a larger tradition of Russian imperialism and Soviet genocide.
• Despite the occupiers’ attempts to destroy Ukrainian society, the Ukrainians remain resilient and determined to resist.

Published February 14, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Nataliya Gumenyuk’s original post ‘They Didn’t Understand Anything, but Just Spoiled People’s Lives’

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Ukraine Has the Battlefield Edge [Gil Barndollar, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 12, 2023
265 views
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• Russia mobilized 300,000 reservists in September to stabilize its front as winter set in.
• Despite recent successes in Kharkiv and Kherson, Ukrainian leaders are now warning that a new Russian offensive is imminent.
• Russian reservists are mostly men who previously served as one-year conscripts, with an average age of 35.
• Russian troops have demonstrated a deficit of discipline, making them vulnerable to determined Ukrainian defenders.
• Ukrainian success has come down to skillful use of modern weapons against this incompetent and demoralized enemy.
• U.S. training and advising have been almost as significant as the hardware in Ukraine’s success.
• Deteriorating morale on the front lines and at home is mutually reinforcing, making it harder for Russia to fill its penal battalions.
• Putin’s reluctance to mobilize is driven by fear of a political backlash to the call-up.
• Ukraine appears to have lost the manpower advantage, but Russia’s increased numbers are unlikely to overcome Ukrainian will and skill.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Gil Barndollar’s original post Ukraine Has the Battlefield Edge

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Europe has to stand against Russia [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

By Spencer Chen
In Noah Smith [Noahpinion]
February 12, 2023
242 views
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• Russia has regained the initiative in the war in Ukraine, with a shift in tactics to infantry and artillery barrages, and a mobilization of 300,000 troops.
• Russia’s imperialistic ambitions are clear, with a desire to regain control over former USSR republics, former Warsaw Pact countries, and even parts of Germany.
• Ukraine needs sustained outside help to prevail against Russia’s larger population and resources.
• The U.S. is an unreliable partner against Russia, with support for Ukraine becoming a culture-war wedge issue, and private contractors not always seeing eye to eye with the U.S. government.
• Europe must unite and prepare itself to prevail in a long stand-off with the aggressive empire next door.
• The U.S. is increasingly focusing its attention on Asia, not Europe, and this could weaken its ability to defend Europe from Russia.
• Europe is more powerful than Russia in terms of population, manufacturing output, and economic dependence.
• Europe has already adapted to the cutoffs of Russian gas and oil, and can continue to do so.
• Europe must increase its defense spending, put aside internal squabbles, and recognize that it is on the side of the “good guys” in order to defend itself against Russia.
• The U.S. stabilized Europe in the 20th century, but now Europe must prove that it can defend its own freedom.

Published February 12, 2023
Visit Noahpinion to read Noah Smith’s original post Europe has to stand against Russia

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Peter Zeihan – The Ukraine War Is Just Getting Started [Peter Zeihan, Zeihan on Geopolitics]

By William McClain
In Peter Zeihan [Zeihan on Geopolitics], Politics
February 9, 2023
269 views
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• Russia has always sought to expand their territory to gain buffer space, reach geographic barriers, and forward position their forces.
• Ukraine is not an access point to Russia‘s most important territories, Romania and Poland.
• If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, they will eventually come for Romania and Poland, and will use every tool available, including nuclear weapons.
• If Ukraine succeeds, they must cross the border into Russia to disrupt Logistics and prevent industrial plant from contributing to the war effort.
• The war will become more intense before it is resolved and Russia has never backed down from a war without suffering mass casualties.

Published February 9, 2023
Visit YouTube to read Peter Zeihan’s original vlog Peter Zeihan – The Ukraine War Is Just Getting Started

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The Two Stalingrads [Elliot Ackerman, The Atlantic]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Atlantic]
February 6, 2023
273 views
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• The article discusses the legacy of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War, and how it is shared by both Russia and Ukraine.
• It recounts the story of three Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who presented the author with a lapel pin from the Union of Veterans of Afghanistan.
• It references the work of Vasily Grossman, a Ukrainian Soviet Jew, and his 1942 book, *The People Immortal*, which chronicles the Red Army’s retreat through Ukraine in the months after the German invasion on June 22, 1941.
• It compares the Nazi military machine to the Russian-invasion force in Ukraine, and discusses the societal sterility associated with fascism in Russia today.
• It draws parallels between the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Grossman, both of whom understand the importance of narrative in war.
• It concludes by suggesting that the title of Grossman’s book, *The People Immortal*, is a reference to the people of Ukraine and Russia, whose blood has been mixed together in life and death.

Published February 6, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Elliot Ackerman’s original post The Two Stalingrads

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